


Stars

by mrhiddles



Category: Actor RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Truckers, Fluff and Angst, Guilty Pleasures, Hiddlesworth, Implied/Referenced Underage, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, M/M, Shame, by kid i mean late teens, lumberjack trucker chris, oh god i did another thing, younger tom with too much ambition and self awareness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-12-23 21:57:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/931522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrhiddles/pseuds/mrhiddles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris hauls lumber across states and Tom is a kid with too much cash by the side of the road who needs to get to California.</p><p>Tom is just a kid and Chris, well. Chris knows better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, Hiddlesworth again. I just want to see Hemsworth with an axe and dressed in plaid, though really this is more a trucker/lumber hauler AU than anything else.

Tom is just a kid and Chris, well. Chris knows better.

He picked Tom up a couple weeks back. The kid had been walking the side of the more rural highways of Michigan before Chris found him.

It had started with, “Where are you headed?” It had started with honest curiosity.

“Somewhere far away. I can pay my way if you give me a lift for a couple of miles.”

“Can you?” Chris asked, amused by how sure he seemed of his ability to be picked up.

And when Tom dug out his wallet from his pants pocket and held it open so Chris could peer inside—and sure enough the kid had cash—he had already made his decision.

He’d been telling himself it was because the kid was young, not meant to be walking so carefree down highways, at _night_ no less. Not here where the highway broke off every so often into dense woods and back roads of dirt and gravel and abandoned barbeques no one used anymore.

Chris told himself it wasn’t because he was curious. And a little bored. Not because of the stretching dark overhead that bled blue and then lighter and lighter until it was lit with stars. Nights were the same, no matter where you were. The only difference was that some nights were more lonely than others.

Tonight, as Chris pulled into the lot of a twenty-four hour cafe that doubled as a gas station, the sky was a wide expanse of hazy grey tinged blue that made you think things were possible, more than possible, but were just a step too far ahead of you.

The kid—Tom—hiked his bag onto the passenger seat and slid out onto the gravel on his own once the engine hitched off. The drop is a good three feet, and it was always amusing seeing him climb back in.

The bag sat as a moniker of trust as Chris shuts the door and pockets the keys.

Chris doesn’t know how much the kid has when it came to those bills he liked to flaunt around, but it was enough for a large breakfast of steak, eggs, and bacon and two glasses of orange juice. Chris was tempted to get a beer but decided against anything that would make him seem like the trucker chauffeur for the kid that he really was.

It was three in the morning.

“So,” came Tom’s voice around a bite of egg, “Where’s all that lumber headed, anyway?”

“Iowa.”

Tom hums. “Why so far? Don’t they grow their own trees?”

Chris chuckles. “Yeah, I suppose they do.” He shrugs. “It’s a job.”

Tom licks his lips and drank from his glass of juice. Chris watches him lick his lips again.

“I was a waiter for a while. I might try again, don’t know yet.”

“Where are you headed anyway? You never told me.”

“West. I did tell you.” And Tom just stares at him.

“State, I mean,” Chris says flatly.

Tom swallows another bite of food and sits back, fingers tapping against the linoleum.

“California. They have jobs out there.”

“Not so different than out here. I’ve tried.”

Tom scoffs. “With a face like yours? Seriously, no one would hire you?”

Chris barks a loud laugh that sends what few people are eating in the small cafe turn and give him a look. “You’re a handful, kid. You know that?” He takes a drink of his water. “Why California?”

Tom shrugs. Chris can see the slope of his neck strain as he tilts his head to the side. “Acting.”

Chris hums this time and Tom raises wary eyes to his. Like he was searching for some sort of approval, though Chris can’t guess why. “Ambitious, that’s good. Especially if you want to act.”

“That’s what I’ve heard.”

They finish eating and Tom pays for his meal and goes to use the restroom to wet his curls and splash his face while Chris pays for his own.

\--

“We need to find a motel soon,” Tom tells him a few nights later.

“We need showers.”

“Amen to that. You smell like lumberjack and pickles for some odd reason.”

Chris snorts and changes lanes.

\--

Three hours later they found a relatively modern, clean-looking motel. The lighting was good for a place so far out in the boonies, so that was a plus.

He parks around the side where he won’t block any other cars coming in, though there aren’t many others to be found. There were two other cars in the lot, a minivan and what looked to be shiny enough to be a rental.

Tom almost left his stuff but Chris grabbed it and handed it to Tom when he jogged over to Chris’ side. Tom smiles wide at him and Chris smiles back. It feels wrong, but he’d come this far. They would pass the border into Indiana by dawn so he figured he might as well drive the rest of the way. Drop the kid off in Iowa. Hope that he saw to himself safely and that he didn’t wander around highways at night looking far too innocent for his own good.

Chris doesn’t like it.

“Come on, there’s showers and food in there and I need both, badly.”

Chris just quirks a small smile as Tom starts off, bright and cheerful and eager.

Chris knew the sky didn’t look so wide and overwhelming to someone like Tom.

\--

“One room only,” repeats the clerk. He’s an elderly man with blindingly white hair. Chris thought it was the accent that had him hearing wrong.

“You only have single rooms?”

“Yes, yes.” And the man jingles the room key towards Chris just as he reluctantly hands over the thirty dollars for one night.

“Do you at least have a dining—”

“Room service.” And the man hands Chris his receipt and that was that.

Tom shrugs, the amusement in his bright eyes far too obvious as Chris grumbles his way to their room.

“I’m getting that shower first,” he rumbles.

“I get to order then.”

“Sure,” Chris says.

\--

When Chris leaves the shower, he almost forgets he isn’t alone and that maybe wearing only boxer shorts and a tank top isn’t such a good idea. He feels...inappropriate. But then he reminds himself that he didn’t pick up a teenage girl on the side of the road and was sharing a room with her.

But when Tom’s eyes trail over his chest, linger on Chris’ arms, he thinks maybe it’s just as bad.

Then Chris sees what Tom ordered in.

“You got cake?”

“Three kinds of cake. Don’t worry, I paid for all of it.” And sure enough, the kid shovels a forkful of what looks like raspberry cheesecake onto his tongue.

“I don’t know how you’re skinny with all the food you pack away,” Chris mumbles as he goes to take a fork. He picks away at something blueberry until his fingers stick together.

There’s only one bed unfortunately, but Tom doesn’t seem to mind. Chris wonders at the kid’s complacency for life but says nothing. A conversation he does _not_ want to have, lest it venture down other routes.

If Tom was so easy going as to accept a ride from a gruff guy like Chris, who had chain cutters and an axe and other hitching tools in the bunker, than who else did Tom feel comfortable with along the road? He worries about the kid, though he would never say it.

“Which side do you want?” he asks. He knows they’re both too selfish to negotiate the floor or the chair pushed in the corner of the room. A legitimate mattress with blankets and pillows, no matter how thin or flat, was always better than a truck bunker.

Tom shrugs around another mouthful of food. Then shuffles out, “Right, I guess.”

“Alright.”

At least there is a television set into the wall, not something every motel had. Tom takes up the controller when Chris leans back against the headboard, ankles crossed where he stretches out his legs. The blueberry pie-cake—Chris didn’t know what it was—Tom ordered sat in his lap as he ate away at it.

“What movies do you like?”

Chris keeps chewing until Tom turns and quirks that infuriating eyebrow at him.

He swallows. “I don’t watch much TV to be honest. On the road too much.”

“Not _TV_ , movies. Film. They’re an art, Chris. I worry about you sometimes.”

“That is rich coming from you. Trudging along on the pavement at night, hitchhiking.” Chris can’t help but blurt it out. It’s not been brought up since he agreed to give Tom a lift in the first place. There had been no rules but, well, there _were rules_. He suddenly feels he’s crossed some unseen line.

But Tom just laughs, tongue stained red and peeking between his teeth.

\--

He doesn’t know which of them fell asleep first, but Chris wakes to a weight shifting on his chest. He’s too warm and the pressure of it makes him think of all the wrong places, and for _fuck’s sake_ he’s still half asleep.

The weight turns out to be an arm around his waist, and Tom’s cheek on his chest.

Chris would have been content to lie there and will himself back to sleep. Allow himself his one irredeemable guilt to be rewarded by awkwardness in the morning if only he could just go back to sleep right now. Enjoy it while he could.

But life wasn’t easy for Chris.

“Is this alright?” comes a tiny whisper from the boy resting against him.

No, Chris thinks. But he says, “Must’ve moved in your sleep.”

The answer comes a second too late. “Yeah, must have.”

A beat of silence passes and he can feel Tom’s breath fan damp over the line of his shirt, heating his skin. His arm is numb where Tom lies on it and he wants to move it up, curl it around Tom’s waist and hug him close.

But that’s wrong. So, so very wrong.

“I’m old enough, you know,” comes Tom’s voice again. He sounds far away, even though Chris need only angle his face just so and he can probably reach Tom’s nose.

“And how old would that be, exactly?”

“I’m seventeen. It’s not like I’ve not—”

“Don’t. Just, please...don’t say anything else.”

It’s the one thing Chris has been wanting to avoid, and he’ll be damned if now, with Tom there against him, that it will rear its ugly head. The topic of where Tom’s been, what he’s done, and with _whom_ —

“I’m sorry,” Tom whispers, ducking his head so that Chris can feel lips against his side.

“Me too.”

And then, slowly, Chris brings his arm up, giving in to that one desire. That one want to hold Tom where he is.

He allows himself that much.


End file.
